Fox News is telling its employees to work from home for at least another month while its TV hosts push for businesses to reopen
Fox News/YouTube
Employees of the Fox Corporation, which includes Fox News, were told their offices would remain closed until June 15 at the earliest, according to CNN.
Fox News hosts have been calling on the president and state leaders to relax stay-at-home orders for weeks, arguing non-essential businesses should be permitted to reopen.
Like most networks, Fox has been operating in a way that allows most to work from home with only essential personnel to report to offices to keep the network on the air amid the pandemic.
In a memo to employees Friday, the Fox Corporation announced workers will be told to telework for at least another month, CNN reported.
According to CNN's Brian Stelter, the memo sent Friday tells Fox Corp. employees — which include employees of Fox News — that they will not begin a gradual return to the company's offices until June 15 at the earliest. The date could be pushed back even further, according to CNN.
"We were originally told of a potential return to the office in mid-May back in late March, so I wouldn't be surprised if we don't make [the June 15 date] and we push it to late summer," a Fox source told CNN.
The memo, sent by Fox Corp. Chief Operating Officer John Nallen, says that the company's properties would reopen in "phases," sources told CNN.
Fox News has largely been operating under phase one of the multi-part plan, allowing essential network personnel and some anchors to work from offices to keep the network on-air during the pandemic. It's what other networks have been doing, too, CNN noted.
The memo comes as the network's on-air personalities have for weeks been echoing President Donald's calls to reopen shuttered portions of the country, from schools to businesses. Coronavirus cases continue to rise, and models predict even more cases as states reopen early.
As Business Insider reported on April 3 — over a month ago — Fox News anchors had already been calling on the president to end lockdown efforts meant to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed the government had "outsourced the decision to public health officials" and that "the public health establishment failed us badly" in recommending stay-at-home and similar orders.
On April 23, Laura Ingraham, host of "The Ingraham Angle" made a similar case that targeted Dr. Anthony Fauci, nation's leading health expert.
"If we wait for Dr. Fauci's seal of approval to reopen America, we may not have an America to reopen," she said on her Fox News show.
And on May 11, as Mediaite noted, "Fox & Friends" anchor Brian Kilmeade pushed for the economy to reopen, even as some of his colleagues urged for a more cautious approach.
"I feel so bad for these people who want to see a light at the end of the tunnel," Kilmeade said of people in states like Illinois and Pennsylvania who own gyms or dealerships but can't reopen because state orders required they remain close.
"I understand what all of the hosts are saying — businesses are failing, people are suffering, and most people want a way out of this ASAP," Stelter, a media analyst for CNN, wrote in his Reliable Sources newsletter Tuesday. "Different approaches are probably appropriate in different places. But it's strange to see Fox stars hosting from home, albeit in hard-hit areas like New York, telling viewers that it's time to get back out."
Polling data has suggested the majority of Americans support the continuation of stay-at-home orders, despite several states relaxing them at the beginning of May and protests in various states across the country against the leaders who enacted them.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has been at the forefront of the Trump administration's COVID-19 response, is expected to testify before the Senate Tuesday to argue about the dangers of prematurely opening the US economy.
"If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines to: 'Open America Again,' then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country," Fauci wrote in an email obtained by The New York Times. "This will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal."
Read the original article on Business Insider
